Our Passion Is Your Problem

Is it just me, or is it hot in here?

Microsoft murmurs in our ear: "Your Potential. Our Passion."

Ketchum, the public-relations agency, tries to have it both ways: "Passion and Precision in Communication."

Worthwhile Magazine exhorts readers to "Work with Purpose, Passion & Profit."

Dassault Systemes has a "Passion for Innovation."

Enzon Pharmaceuticals is too excited for punctuation: "People Passion Performance Pride Profits."

At L'Oreal Canada, "we share a passion for well-being, beauty, and conquering new markets." (But not for parallel syntax.)

Carpet maker Milliken & Company has a "corporate passion for trees and forests" that led to an Arbor Day tree-planting program.

When The Body Shop launched a line of products using passionfruit, it posted signs in corporate headquarters encouraging workers to "Work with Passion" and "Laugh with Passion." (According to my source, Stephanie Vollmer of Wicked Prose--no web site, alas--there was even a sign in the bathroom that said "Pee with Passion.")

Creating Passionate Users is...mmmm...spreading the love.

And everyone--absolutely everyone--is seeking "people with a passion for [fill in the blank]" to occupy the cubicle down the hall.

How did we get so darned amorous about what used to be called the rat race?

Blame Tom Peters. In 1985 he published A Passion for Excellence, and since then he's tirelessly trod the globe, trying to keep the office fires burning. If he had a slogan, it would doubtless be "My Passion Is Passion."

Personally, although some people I know derive occasional satisfaction from their work, I know no one who approaches the daily grind with passion, unless it's in the original Latin sense of "suffering." (Whence "The Passion of the Christ.")

Still, "passion" has struck a chord--a monotonous, meaningless, tuneless chord, but a sort of noise nonetheless. I'll grant you this: As a linguistic marker, "passion" is certainly juicier than "ambition" or "willingness to endure long hours and continual abuse in exchange for a paycheck."

And so the passionate chorus continues, swelling and throbbing and mounting in a crescendo of...

Hark! I feel a poem coming on.

Hot and Bothered

I’ve noticed that it’s all the fashion

To boast about “our corporate passion.”

It’s nothing short of patriotic

To speak of work in terms erotic.

Statements of the corporate miss-

ion sound distinctly feverish.

Where once a job was dull and fusty

It’s now the font of all things lusty.

While slaving on-site or remote-ish

We itch! We pant! We’re downright goatish!

The nine-to-five inspires such ardor

I sense that some are working … harder.

Such fervor—really, it’s the oddest!

And thus to my proposal modest:

Let’s nip this bud right now, pre-flower,

And hop into a nice cold shower.

Comments

[MB Deans]

I help people who are making career transitions and it's awfully hard to convince a newly-fired, middle-aged manager she/he needs to show "passion." These folks are passionate, alright: angry, frustrated, and feeling abused by the previous employer. It's hard to turn that into something positive.

And having managed folks in corporate America, sometimes you just want someone who can do the job without getting all het up over things. Don't argue with me about your "better way," just do the darn job!

[Matthew Stibbe]

You've put your finger on something important here. "Passion" is another overworked business word that should be banned like "Solutions" and "Empowerment".

I feel another poem coming on: WB Yeats's The Second Coming, which includes the immortal lines:

"The best lack all convictions, while the worst // Are full of passionate intensity."

I think we live in a world where novelty passes for innovation and a slogan passes for reality.

[Liz Guthridge]

How timely! Just this past week, I've been working with a client on its vision for 2012. I purposely avoided the word "passion" hoping it will be out of favor in six years. My preference is next year.) But it worked its way in because today everyone is committed to having passion for the consumer.

[Owen Lystrup]

Matthew,

I agree with you. Way over used.

I doubly agree on the "solutions" overuse.

I recently had a client I was doing copy writing work for and I could not convince him with all my strenuous exertion to use any other tagline than "solutions for water district management."

Not only does it lead with a cliche, but no one will know what it means.

Yelch.

Not my product. And I got paid. So as long as he's happy, I know I tried.

[Charles]

I agree that the corporate rage over "passion" in the workplace is a bit much, but what about in your professionals? Don't you want your lawyer to be passionate about your case, especially when presenting it to the jury or the court? After all, you want counsel to exude belief in the righteousness of your cause. How about your doctor? I'd hate the idea of my doctor seeing me as part of the "daily grind."

[Nancy Friedman]

Point taken, Charles, but lawyers and doctors aren't contributing to the verbal smog here. Besides, for them, as for everyone else, Eliza Doolittle's advice still holds: "If you're on fire, show me!"

[the Scribbler]

I had a laugh out loud moment just now, when our marketing team was asked for our opinion of words to sum up the company we work for. The choices are Passion and Liberating. I really hope I can steer them away from the P word...